Posts Tagged ‘language’

Happy Thursday everyone! I’m starting to get excited about the upcoming weeks…seeing friends, Thanksgiving, busy days at work. Here are some of my favorite posts from the past couple days. Don’t forget to leave links to what you have been writing and reading in the comments!!

We’re pleased to host the 6th edition of the newly reborn Feminist Carnival! In the spirit of rebirth, and in alignment with the readers and mission of Scarleteen, this round puts it’s focus on young feminist bloggers and feminist issues particularly pertinent to younger women.

I keep forgetting to submit links to the carnival, so I am not featured, but there are some great posts in this latest carnival of feminists!

“Rape” is actually a pretty problematic and tricky word. The roots it is derived from refer to seizure and force, but it also carries an overtone of shaming. It’s not about violation, it’s about despoiling women. It’s not about the denial of bodily autonomy, it’s about damaged goods. These implications have kind of been lost with time, but they’re there.

The holiday season is approaching, which means it’s time to roll out more products to help our little girls feel very bad about their bodies. (That, or pregnant). Over the years, toy-makers have boldly invented new mechanisms by which they can make money off of the body consciousness of young girls. Below, inventors push girls to look simultaenously curvier (grow boobs already!), skinnier (but make sure to lose your baby weight!), sexily reproductive (be six years old AND skinny AND pregnant!) and matronly (breastfeed babies with the boobs you don’t have!).

Basically, the film makes absolutely no attempt whatsoever to comment on the atrocity of sex trafficking—it serves only as a plot device to help Bryan redeem his broken relationship with his virginal daughter.

Happy Sunday! The start of the week is soon upon us, so it’s time to get caught up on some blog reading. Here are some of my favorite posts of the past couple days. Don’t forget to leave links to what you have been writing and reading in the comments!

I hope everyone has had a good week. As always, this post features some of my favorite posts from the past couple days as well as some of my favorite posts from the week that were already featured in Tuesday or Thursday‘s link love posts. Don’t forget to leave links to what you have been writing/reading in the comments!

New Link Love

Cis [this ain’t livin’] – a definition and examination of the word ‘cis.’

Another Way Language Excludes People [Small Strokes] – feminists often think about how the language that they use is exclusionary. But the use of English in relation to non-English speakers is not often commented on with the same kind of concern.

There have been a lot of really great posts over the past couple of days. And thanks to my brand new iPhone (yes, I’m officially addicted), I can more easily manage the number of posts that come into my Google Reader. Here are some of my favorites of the past couple days. As always, don’t forget to leave links to what you have been writing/reading!

Another Way Language Excludes People [Small Strokes] – feminists often think about how the language that they use is exclusionary. But the use of English in relation to non-English speakers is not often commented on with the same kind of concern.

How to Mess Up [this ain’t livin’] – everyone makes mistakes. But there’s a right way to go about doing that.

The details of your abortion online? [Salon Broadsheet] – there is a new Oklahoma law that posts the details of every abortion performed in the state to be put on a public website.

I hate that this language is so ingrained into my own vocabulary. I am aware that I do it. I cringe most every time that the word comes out of my mouth. But most of the time, it just slips out — it’s something that has been part of my vocabulary so long that it’s just something that comes out. But that’s no excuse really. What word am I talking about? One that our society uses so often that many people don’t even think of it as an offensive or exclusionary word: lame.

I can’t tell you how many times throughout my life that I have used the phrase “that’s lame” or “don’t be lame” in my life. It’s been a part of my vocabulary since grade school. I wasn’t really aware of the exclusionary and offensive nature of the word until college. That’s when I made the connection between the word “lame” and it’s association to people with mental disabilities.

But my socialization to the world “lame” is no excuse for the continued use of it. I’m definitely more conscious of using it when I am typing because I have to think more about my word choice. But when I’m talking, “lame” still slips out every now and then. I am definitely more conscious of it now that I have developed my feminism and learned more about how forms of oppression interact with each other. I catch myself when I say it now. If I don’t catch myself before it comes out, I cringe after I say it and think “I can’t believe I just said that.” I definitely don’t say it as much as I used to. I’m more aware of it now. But it’s definitely still there.

This post is not meant as a way for me to get people to tell me “it’s ok as long as you are aware of what you are doing.” If I have learned anything from developing my feminism as well as becoming involved in the feminist blogging community, it is that no one is perfect. But these flaws have to be examined. And over the past couple days, I have been increasingly reminded that “ableism is not feminism.” I have to own up to my use of ableist language. I have to work towards eliminating ableist language from my vocabulary. But, I do not expect my admission to using ableist language and my word that I will work towards improving this will make it all better. It won’t.

While I’m not expecting people to tell me that I’m not at fault for using ableist language as long as I admit to is and work towards ending it, I do hope that this post will encourage other people to question the nature of the language they use and how it may be exlusionary or offensive.

I hope you all have had a great week! I’ve finally started a somewhat regular work schedule, as some of you may know. Because of this, I am asking for guest/cross posts from my readers! Once I get used to my work schedule, I will probably be back to posting more regularly. Right now, the weekly features should not suffer, it’s mainly the number of posts. But I am trying to have at least one post a day outside of weekly features, but we’ll see if I can keep that up.

As always, check out the link love from Tuesday and Thursday. This post features some of my favorite posts from the past couple days as well as some of my favorite posts of the week that were already featured in link love this week.